Contractor Induction: Bet You're Doing It All Wrong!

By Author: markpakshie
Total Articles: 14
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Even the most experienced and diligent HSE Managers are frequently guilty of not giving their contractor induction duties the focus they deserve. Outdated handbooks or DVDs, costly face-to-face training, or even nothing at all!

While having a contractor induction system in place is a legal requirement for most companies, there is very little regulation around how safety training should be delivered to contractors. So it’s not surprising when system improvements get pushed to the back burner.

The result of course is that your contractors could be entering and working at your site without a good understanding of your company's specific safety issues. At the same time, you are unable to demonstrate that you have made an effort to effectively educate your contractors about workplace safety. This can create all kinds of problems when an incident involving a contractor occurs.

The inherent dangers
So what if your contractor induction is a bit out of date? So what if you're not testing course comprehension? These contractor guys do dozens of inductions every year. They know it all already. Perhaps, but ...
... regardless of how safety-savvy your contractors may be, there are a number of dangers associated with a poor contractor induction system that may not be immediately evident:

Poor attitude towards safety: When you demonstrate a relaxed attitude towards workplace safety, either by providing clearly outdated information or an incomplete training process, your contractors will adopt the same attitude – If it's not important to them, why should I care?
Genuine lack of safety knowledge: There will always be cases where contractors are not very workplace-safety savvy. Unless you are providing them with clearly communicated information, they will come onto your site without the knowledge they need to keep themselves, and others, safe. It is also essential that you have a process to test their comprehension of the information. If they demonstrate a lack of understanding, they need to be re-trained. Contractors who are not aware of, or do not respect, safety issues can be a very dangerous element to have on site.
Lapsed Compliance: Unless your contractor induction system has the ability to track expiry dates, you may also find yourself in a position where your contractors are no longer compliant.
Inconsistent message: One of the key ways to establish a strong culture of safety in the workplace is by delivering a consistent message to all employees and contractors. When everyone who works on your site has been instilled with the same safety values and shares an understanding of their importance in your workplace, safety behaviour becomes an expected, even natural, part of your culture. Without a consistent message, each individual will work to their own understanding of and attitude towards safety.

The simple solution of course is to implement a contractor induction system that can be delivered consistently throughout your organisation. Online solutions will enable you to do this best, as they can be controlled from a single location, across all sites – and all your inductions can be tracked and reported on quickly and simply. They also eliminate IT issues. The best thing is that it doesn’t take much energy or time to make it happen.

Our online safety induction training program works equally well for both employee induction and contractor induction. Induction training can also take different forms at your place of business. For more information please do visit our website.